Today, I traveled to Verona with Florence For Fun. It is a three hour bus ride and on the way there we watched Love Actually as I worked on blog entries and a paper. Our head guide Francesco brought it for the ride because it is his favorite British movie. When the theme song came on he started to sing along. We took a walking tour of Verona and visited the houses of Romeo and Juliet. The garden of Juliet was far different from the movies. In the courtyard, there was gum and bandaids all over the walls with names of people and their lovers. There was a large crowd of people trying to take a photo with the statue of Juliet and a few people on the balcony taking photos. The walls under the long archway were painted red with a white rectangle on which people were signing the wall with markers and placing bandaids and sticky notes with names. We also visited The Arche Scaligeri these elaborate, raised tombs are beautifully carved and placed in the court of Santa Maria Antica. If you visit Verona and want to see the most beautiful basilica there, then I recommend a look at the Basilica of Sant' Anastasia. After visiting the Basilica, we walked to the Ponte Piedra where the sounds of the rushing river were very calming and pulled your eyes towards the panoramic views of the city. We also went to the Piazza della Erbe (market square) and witnessed the location where the prisoners would be collared to a post in the center of the market for all of the city to see the criminals. The Piazza Bra outside of the Palazzo della Gran Guardia is a wide piazza with fenced in green spaces that offers view of the arena, the palace, and a row of restaurants. After lunch, we headed back to the bus, and once we found it in the lot, we headed to Lago De Garda which contains the town of Sirmione. We took a boat tour around the edge of the town on the southern edge of the lake. Typically you can see the Alps from the lake, but they were barely visible behind a thick fog on the opposite side of the lake. The views of the city from the lake were breathtaking, and the clouds in the bright blue sky, along with the beautiful blue water made for some beautiful photographs. (Check the Photographs page to see the views!).